Recent reviews by Big Dad Energy

This has filled the Banished sized/shaped hole in my life.

Pros:
Extreme player freedom
Fun System Interactions
Engaged Developers
Encourages Creativity

Cons:
Everything you expect from an in-development, early access game

As my playtime shows, I love this game. It can be a gritty survivalist challenge. It can be a pure city builder. For me, it's mostly an RPG with this little village as the character.

There are lots of nuanced, interconnecting systems. Some are very intuitive, others maybe a little less. But it's a game where I feel satisfied digging a root cellar to keep food cool in the summer so it lasts longer AND when I build an elevated bridge to my castle so raiders bunch together and are easier to kill when they attack. Mastering the systems is fun and building castles is cool.

You have all the fun planning of a city builder like Banished plus a good dash of The Sims: Black Plague Survivors. It's great!

The game has grown by leaps and bounds since it first popped up and it's only ever gotten more enjoyable. Yes, occasionally a patch breaks something. But the devs are very quick with fixes. I adore this game!

If you loved the original Company of Heroes and are focused on single player, you will probably love this game. It had several, game-breaking bugs at release that kept me from completing the campaign until very recently. But the patches have smoothed things out, and then result is a really fun and engaging game. The mix of missions and skirmish types in the Italy Campaign is solid, and you have a ton of freedom and flexibility to play the way you want to. I cannot speak to the multiplayer as I don't play that format. I appreciate the developers fixing things as they could.

I've been playing Deep Rock Galactic for a couple of years now, and it's hard to overstate what a great game it is. The mix of classes is great, with no one ever feeling useless. The combat is challenging without being frustrating. The missions and deep dives keep things interesting, along with all of the various machine events and modifiers that can let you stumble into fun mini-missions in the middle of the game. Combined with the procedurally generated maps and there is almost endless replayability.

As a side note, the developer has been fantastic all through early access. Detailed road maps for new content, constantly adding new and fun features, and very open and clear communications with the community. Can't recommend it enough!